A Little Goddess

Description: Like when Isis went to live in the marsh and begged for food for her
baby, Serqa went to live on the roof of the Gorgos Sisters Hellenic
Gymnasium for girls. Like Isis, she had a curse to lift and steps to
take through the world that was full of magic if you’d stop to tell the
tale.Rating: PG-13Genre: Fantasy, Historical, Based off of "A Little Princess", Ptolemaic Egypt

As Ra sailed into the sky’s arc on Serqa’s thirteenth birthday, she
burned an incense cone of myrrh and lotus flowers in front of her little
plaster Isis. She breathed in and told herself a story of her father’s
magical return home.

The world was full of magic. Serqa was
certain that Se-Osiris, who lived in the row house next door to the
Gorgos Sisters Hellenic gymnasium for girls, was a magician. Since he
was very old, he didn’t go out very much into Cairo. Also, Serqa was
certain that the Isis statue came alive when Serqa left the room. Serqa
said to Betet, the girl who cleaned her rooms, “I never catch her at
it.”

“Yes, Miss Serqa.” Betet smiled shyly at the tiled floor as she swept.

Serqa’s
birthday celebration took place in the garden behind the large stone
row house. Despite the name, the garden had no trees or flowers in it.
It was full of stone statues so perfect that they looked as if they had
been alive a few moments before they became statues, which meant they
had been. There was also a clay track for running and a pile of rocks.
Stheno, the older Gorgos sister, would throw the rocks at girls who
weren’t running fast enough. This had something to do with a classic
Hellenic education.

Stheno never threw rocks at Serqa. She pushed
Serqa forward and said, “Here is our beautiful star student.” The way
she said it always made Serqa think of a cobra hissing.

At Serqa’s
birthday party there was a camel, three acrobats and a pile of gifts
taller than herself. Stheno bought them on behalf of Serqa's father,
Strategos Chysthanos.

Euryale, the younger Gorgos sister, clutched
an old strip of fabric and watched the acrobats. She sniffed, “A
wonderful birthday for a wonderful girl.” She said it in voice that made
Serqa think of the low of a cow when her calf is taken from her.

Serqa’s
own mother had died when Serqa was seven. The same year that Strategos
Chysthanos went far away to fight for Pharaoh Ptolemy in the wars.

Serqa
had woken up that morning and realized that she no longer remembered
what her father’s face looked like, which is why she’d told the story to
herself. She looked into a piece of polished silver to see if she could
see glimpse of him, but she saw her mother there in every part of her
face, except for her green eyes. Her father had green eyes.

On the
afternoon that she was thirteen, Stheno came out into the garden and
screamed, “Stop. Everyone stop.” She snarled at the acrobats. She
pointed at the camel with a long hard finger. "Take that thing and get
out." She ripped the doll with yellow flax hair from Serqa's arms. "Your
father died in battle. His estates in Syria and Hellene were lost. The
lands in Cairo and in Lower Egypt were taken by Pharaoh. You have
nothing." She shook the doll so that its hair bounced. "I paid for all
of this." She looked at her sister, Euryale. "We pay for everything."
Stheno snarled and turned away.

Serqa stood very still as one does when a serpent is near.

Her
green eyed father was dead. His Ka had left him. Serqa had no way of
knowing if the proper funeral rites had been carried out. His Sheut, his
shadow soul, might have been cast onto the yellow winds. Pharaoh might
strike her father’s name from monuments. She couldn't be sure of the
state of her father’s heart as he stood before Osiris. His Ba might be
circling lost in the sky.

She walked in a blur of sorrow.

Euryale
led Serqa up to the roof of the row house, a wide flat space broken up
with low walls. Euryale said, "This is where you'll sleep now." She
knitted her plump hands. "I'm sorry for your loss." Euryale bobbed her
head. She took the oil lamp and left behind only the dark.

Serqa looked in the starlight, but she did not see a bed. She was so tired that she lay down on the bricks.

As
the moon climbed into the sky, Betet came up to the roof. She rolled
out a thin reed mat. She whispered, "Miss Serqa, you sleep the mat."
After Serqa struggled onto it, Betet pushed something dark to her. “I
get Isis from old room.”

Serqa took the old worn Isis figure that she had been her mother's and whispered, "Thank you."

This
was when Serqa thought to herself that now she must be like Isis while
she wandered as a beggar with her baby when her brother-husband was
killed by their brother.

Serqa swallowed what tears she had under
the stars and she whispered, "I think that we are like the sisters, Isis
and Nepthys, who were trapped in their mother's womb, which is the
night sky." She pointed up at the milky spill of stars. "We are waiting
for my father, Thoth, to trick the sun and moon so that we can be born."

Betet rolled over on her mat and sat up on one elbow. "I not a goddess. I clean up after ladies."

Serqa,
for the first time, wondered why they were speaking in Hellene. She
looked up at the night stars of their mother, Nut, and whispered in the
language of Khemet, "I am like you now."

Betet exhaled. "I did not know that you spoke Khemet." Betet laughed and it was a beautiful sound.

Serqa
looked up at the sky and said with all the conviction that a thirteen
year old girl can have, "I think we are like the goddesses, only we are
in disguise, because," and she decided then the way this story went, "we
are on a quest. This place is cursed."

"Oh, and don't I know it,"
laughed Betet again to the night sky. "The cook curses me in Khemet and
the Gorgos sisters curse me in Hellene."

Serqa put her arms
behind her head and explained it as a story within a story. "Once the
king of the Assyrians put a curse on Pharaoh that stole his shadow soul
and made his heart heavy and he became like a madman. He raged for no
reason and threw rocks at his court and he cried when he saw his
children laughing. I think the curse is like that." She let the shape of
the curse make itself in her mouth as she spoke the heaviness in her
heart. “I think there is a curse on the hearts of the Gorgos sisters and
that is why their shadow souls cover the house.”

Betet yawned.
"I’ve always loved your stories. When I listen, sometimes I lose the
meaning of the words, but it doesn't matter because I'm falling down
your voice.” She yawned again. “But we should get some sleep." Betet
followed her own advice.

But Serqa stared up at the womb of her mother, Nut, and told herself a story about how her father, Thoth, would rescue her soon.

She
was interrupted when Anubis scrabbled across the bricks in the form of a
rat. His eyes glittered red in the starlight, but she knew that it was
him. She never would have seen him in her old rooms, but here, high
above this cursed place, he was able to get in. She got up and bowed to
him. She whispered, "Is my father well? Were the proper funeral rites
observed? Is it my fault he died? Is it because I wished for magic? Is
it because I didn't notice the curse?"

The rat put his paws on
Isis and squeaked. Serqa understood. She felt the rock on her heart lift
a little, as in the distance the fat moon rose higher in the sky.

She
looked over the edge of the roof and held Isis next to her heart.
Anubis sat on the ledge. They looked out over Cairo and she saw the part
of the soul of the city that was its shadow. It was so dark and deep
that she did not need to be Horus to see it. She pointed at the shadow
soul and whispered, "That's the past. Time goes into the deep earth like
a star in Nut's belly."

She thought about time. How time went
into the deep earth. How time sat on her shoulders like the sand
scattered on the pyramids. How time hovered in the sky like Horus until
it descended onto her shoulders and then into the deep earth.

She
remembered that when she was little, she’d often slept with her parents
on the roof when it was too hot to sleep inside. She looked up at the
stars and thought about the times her father had told her their Hellenic
names. She heard her mother’s voice telling her about Isis and Nepthys
in the belly of Nut.

She thought about that as she looked up at
the stars with time falling on her face in the form of moonlight. She
thought about that as she blinked tired on a new morning. Anubis had
gone. His place had been taken by Cackling Geb, who wore the form of a
monkey. She said, "Hello."

Betet blinked awake. "What is it?"

Serqa
bowed solemnly. "It's a messenger from your father, Cackling Geb, who
is the earth under our mother sky. He's here to tell us that we will be
rescued soon." Just then the first beam of Ra bust over the horizon.
"See."

Betet sighed. "That's not rescue. That's morning."

"You'll
see." Serqa grinned at Ra, who was keeping them trapped in time, but
her father, Thoth, would find a way. She ran after Betet down the
stairs.

She thought about rescue a great deal as she cleaned out
the rooms of her former friends. Some laughed at her. Some turned away
from her.

Ermentherna, who she’d always pitied because she wasn’t
very clever, looked at her with wide eyes and twisted her hands. She
said nothing.

Serqa learned what hunger was and knew that this was
what it was like when Isis lived in the reed marsh and had to beg for
food for herself and baby Horus.

That very night, she saw
Se-Osiris carried up on a litter onto the roof of the row house. Serqa
waved to him and the tall servant who cared for him. Cackling Geb jumped
over Se-Osiris in his shelter of reeds woven together for shade.

She
watched him over the low wall, but just as Se-Osiris was about to do
magic, Ermentherna came up through the trap door onto the roof. She
whispered, because the roof invited whispers, "Hello, Serqa. Is this
where you sleep now?" She held up her lamp. "It's very dark. Where is
your bed? Where do you put your lamp?"

Betet sighed and said in
Hellene, "No bed. No lamp." She muttered under her breath in Khemet, "No
polished wood tables or chairs encased in electrum either."

Serqa
let time slip out of her spread hands. "This is the womb of Nut, our
mother." Serqa raised her face to the breeze. She said, "Close your eyes
and you can feel the breeze that has been sent by Thoth, my father.

Ermentherna
said, "I thought your father was, oh, that is nice." She closed her
eyes. She held out the book under her arm. "I brought the book my father
just sent me. I thought maybe you could read it to me, so I could
understand it and father won't be as angry at me."

Serqa rolled
out the reed mat and sat cross legged on it." She gestured to it. "This
mat was woven by Cackling Geb, who is the earth. It keeps whoever sits
on it safe from the jackals that haunt the red desert.

Ermentherna looked around startled. "Are there a lot of jackals up here?"

"No,"
Serqa tugged Ermentherna down, "because we have the mats." She felt her
heart lift a little. There was still something that she could do.

She
read to both Betet and Ermentherna from the book in a mix of Hellene
and Khemet until Ermentherna cracked a yawn that almost broke her face.
The moon rose up over the city of Cairo, which was when Serqa
remembered. She said, "Betet and I are on a quest. We think the Gorgos
sisters have a curse on their shadow souls."

“I guess that makes
sense.” Ermentherna's forehead wrinkled. "Can I, I know I’m not terribly
clever, but maybe I could help.” Her hands worried at her clothes. “But
probably not."

In
the morning, she woke to the sound of Cackling Geb laughing at her
before dawn. The magic had brought a small oil lamp and a jar of oil.
She lit the lamp and put it front of Isis, so she could see too. She
bowed to Cackling Geb, who sat on the low wall that separated the row
houses. She waved at the tall servant of Se-Osiris and called softly,
"Good morning."

He waved back in the round light of his own lamp. “Beautiful morning.”

She read until Ra sailed into the sky. Betet sat up. "Where did you get a lamp?"

"Oh," said Betet. She touched the side of the lamp and she bowed to Isis for good measure. "Thank you."

Isis smiled serenely, but she didn't move, because they were looking at her.

Later,
while Stheno threw rocks to encourage the girls to run and Euryale
taught rhetoric, they crept into their room. Ermentherna stood worried
guard at the door.

Betet said, "Looks like it always does. There's nothing here."

"No,
see." Serqa pointed to where the sunlight through the window mat cast
circular shadows on the floor. It was like when a pebble was dropped in a
garden pool.

She whispered, “Magic, keep me safe.” She took a
deep breath and stepped into the water. The fabric of her dress floated
up around her ankles and her thighs and her neck.

Above her, Betet said, “I can't swim."

She
held her breath until her lungs burned. Burned and she breathed in. She
told herself the story of it as she breathed the water like air. Her
words bubbled back up to Betet. "Don't worry, the magic will help you."
Betet hesitated and jumped in.

They walked down the ripples like
steps. The walls changed as they went down. First the white washed stone
walls gave way to mud and then became a temple to Wadjet, the serpent
goddess, which had been lost when Isis wept as she found out that Osiris
was dead.

Serqa told the story of it as they went and it was
true. On the altar that broke above the ripples sat four funeral jars.
They were each painted with the face of a screaming woman. She had
serpents for hair and the sides were painted with wings or perhaps the
wings were blood dripping from her neck. Serqa touched the jars gently
and whispered, "Who was it who died and made Stheno so angry and Euryale
so sad?"

Betet stood waist deep in the water with her hands held together at her chest. "It's magic. It’s really magic."

They heard Ermentherna’s harsh whisper through the water. "Someone's coming."

Serqa
grabbed the jars and ran back up through the waves. They burst out the
door, but they left footprints behind them. Betet said, "Go, I'll say
that I spilled the wash water."

Ermentherna gaped at the water dripping on the floor. “Magic!”

Betet
gripped her broom and swept up their footsteps. "Wet magic." Serqa and
Ermentherna ran into the pantry as Stheno stormed through the hallway.

They all held their breath, but Stheno only yelled briefly and stormed away.

Serqa put the jars on the tiled floor. She said, "These belong to someone who has gone into the deep earth."

Ermentherna
crouched down. "Oh, I have a picture of her." She pointed at the face
of the screaming woman. "In one of the books father sent me. Remember."

Serqa
nibbled on her lower lip. She hardly dared ask, because books were so
very dear, but that night Ermentherna came again with another vellum
book.

They opened the book and looked through it. In the middle,
there was a picture like the faces painted on the jars. Serqa read aloud
the story of three sisters, the Gorgons: Stheno, Euryale, and Medusa.

"There's
another one?" Betet stared at the picture. "Two seemed like plenty."
Even though Ermentherna didn't understand a word of Khemet, she nodded
in agreement.

At the end of the story, Ermentherna looked over the wall into the garden below. "Those are all people."

Serqa
closed the book. "Yes, and the hero took her head." She went quickly
from the edge of the roof overlooking the garden to the short wall that
separated the roof of the gymnasium's row house from the next. She sat
on the wall. "We need to find Medusa's head to lift the curse."

"But it's in Hellene." Ermentherna held up the vellum book. "Isn't it?"

"Se-Osiris
can go through a door in one city and walk out a street in another."
Serqa waved at where Se-Osiris sat on his roof and pitched her voice so
he could hear the story that she told about his chase through three
cities and three countries to rescue Pharaoh's son when Set kidnapped
him.

The other girls sat on the reed mats and listened to her by
lamp light until time falling from the sky made Ermentherna crack such a
yawn that she had to go downstairs to sleep.

In the days that
followed, they opened every door in the gymnasium, but it wouldn't be an
ordinary door. Although they searched for many days, and one morning
the magic even brought woven pillows from reeds to raise their heads as
they slept, they didn't find the door.

One day, the cook sent
Serqa outside of the gymnasium to buy fish from the market. She saw the
people of Cairo as she walked the narrow winding streets. She was amazed
at how beautiful everyone was with their shadow souls stretched out
behind them and their soul birds shining through their faces. She felt
dizzy. She crumbled to the deep earth and felt the shadow soul of Cairo
with her knees.

"Little beggar girl. Hello. Hello." A young
Hellenic boy with a gold band around his black curly hair peered down at
her. He smiled very brightly and held out a copper coin. "This is for
you. Because you are a beggar girl and are very hungry and this will
make you rich and feed you forever."

Serqa thought, "I am like
Isis, when she sat at the well in Pi-Anti and the women gave her crusts
of bread, but she blessed them. I need to bless him." Serqa had no idea
how to bless someone, but the deep earth went very deep and the future
settled down like sand from the sky. As she took the coin, she brushed
his hand with the two fingers from her right hand and said, "Your shadow
soul will stretch long across the earth and where it falls, green
things will grow." Then she twisted and pushed the edge of his shadow
soul into the deep earth so that he would be rooted in the land.

"Oh,"
said the little Hellenic boy. "Oh." He looked down and up again, and
she saw the Hellenic Dionysus, who was green like Osiris, flicker behind
his eyes. He said, "Thank you."

"Thank you." She stood up and
cast her own shadow soul over his. They mingled for a moment, and as
they parted, she saw a trace of green in the earth.

She held the
copper in her hand and told herself it was a key. She walked slowly. A
rat ran across the street into a narrow alley. She ran after it. She
called out, "Anubis?" The rat’s shadow soul deepened into the shape of a
jackal. She followed them, the rat and the shadow, through the streets
of Cairo until she hardly knew where she was. They came to a brick wall.
The rat stopped and groomed his fur. She bowed, a little out of
breath, and said, "Thank you, Anubis."

There was a wide crack that
went up and down in the wall. She put the coin that was now a key into
the crack and turned it. A door opened and she went in. She knew from
the bright paintings on the walls that she was in the home of Thoth. She
called out, "Hello, Thoth. Are you here?" The only answer was the echo
of her sandals as they slapped on the blue tiled floor. She came to a
library. The shelves were filled with dozens of scroll canisters. She
put her hands behind her back so she could resist reaching out. She
called out. "Hello. Hello, Thoth."

There was no answer but dust
moving in a sunbeam from a window. She looked at the neat rows of
canisters and examined the tags. She was very surprised to see one
marked with her cartouche.

Below her name was written, "To help
your quest." She whispered, "He really can read the future." She took
down the canister and opened it. Inside was a long scroll on very old
papyrus. It crackled as she unrolled it. She saw that it was the Book of
Thoth. There was red thread dangling halfway through the scroll. She
unrolled it until she reached the thread. It marked the rite to make one
that had gone into the deep earth an Akh, which is to say alive. She
held her breath, and for a moment she really wanted to bring back her
father or maybe her mother, but she knew that the rite shouldn't be used
in that way. This was for her quest, not for her.

Her heart felt
both sorrow and happiness in that moment, which made her heart feel
somewhat dizzy in her chest. Still, she wanted to be polite as Isis. She
said to the room. "Thank you!" She put the scroll canister carefully in
her woven bag. She walked out the way she came. As she closed the door,
she found herself in the market and the key was a coin again.

Her
stomach grumbled and she laughed. It was such a normal thing. She
bought what she had been sent to buy. As she went through the market,
she saw little boys and girls with wide hungry eyes. She only had one
coin, and she very much wanted to fill her belly. But when Isis was in
Cebu, even though she was hungry herself, she fed the hungry there. She
told herself that she only had one coin and that was just enough to feed
herself, but she knew the coin wasn't meant for that.

She took
the coin and she tapped it on the deep earth. She said, "This will make
the land rich and will feed us forever." She held it there awhile and
then she went to a smiling baker and said, "I would like to buy four
loaves of bread."

The smiling baker laughed and gave her six. "You look hungry, sweetling."

Serqa
knew that she must be hungry, because everyone could see it. Which
meant that she was making the right choice. She gave away the loaves as
she walked and didn't look back. So she did not see the smiling baker
stop smiling and let out a long breath as the shadow soul of Cairo
stretched and grew a little bigger.

That evening, as Ra slipped
away over the horizon, Serqa skipped up the steps to the roof even
though she had had little to eat. She waved at Se-Osiris and his tall
servant under the reed woven shade. The tall servant waved back, but
Se-Osiris sat very still and looked at the horizon. However, she noticed
that he was sitting closer. She called out, "Good evening."

The tall servant called back, "Good evening!" and he went about making Se-Osiris more comfortable in his chair.

She turned to Betet, "See what I have." She showed the canister tag to Betet.

Betet said, "What does it say? I cannot read it."

Serqa
stopped. It had never occurred to her that Betet could not read Khemet.
Finally, Serqa said, "It's for our quest. See, there is my cartouche.
The magic is helping us. Here, I will show you how to read what it says.
Now we just need to find the things it lists. They poured over the rite
with Ermentherna, who looked grim and offered to ask her father for the
brass ankh and the silver mirror. Betet looked even grimmer and said,
"The cook has myrrh, cinnamon, vervain, and footprint of Isis." She
swallowed. "I will get them from the locked part of the pantry."

Serqa rolled up the scroll and put it away. "Now we just need to find the head."

Ermentherna looked less than thrilled.

"We need the head or it won't work." Serqa patted Ermentherna's shoulder.

Ermentherna
sighed, but did not argue. Betet grinned. "It can't be worse than
skinning an eel. Those things are nasty." She made a peeling gesture and
Ermentherna rolled her eyes at her. They giggled in the night.

In
the morning, Cackling Geb woke Serqa with his laughter. As she opened
her eyes, she smelled a plate of bread, still warm from the oven. It sat
on the bricks between Serqa and Betet's mats. "Betet, Betet look."

Betet
sat up. "I really like this magic." She bowed to Cackling Geb. "You're a
much better father than my old one." She tore into the bread, but at a
look from Serqa, she said, "Thank you," to Cackling Geb. "It's," she
chewed, "really good." They ate most of it, but Serqa left a crust for
Anubis to feed her father and mother in the underworld.

They
looked again at all the doors and jumped in all the pools of light and
pushed things in all the cracks they could find, but they didn't find a
magic door. Serqa was philosophical about this. "It's not the right
time. When the magic is ready, we'll find it."

They needed to find
it. Euryale had started weeping at the end of every class that she
taught. Stheno was aiming to hit with her rocks.

Serqa helped
Ermentherna write her father, who critiqued her use of certain words
contextually, but after a second letter, he sent her what she'd asked
for. Betet gathered other ingredients from the pantry, while Serqa
distracted the Cook with a love story that had her saying, "Oh, I never.
Then what happened."

Finally, they had everything, but no head. They sat on the roof together and stared at the items. "Now what?" said Ermentherna.

That was when the trap door to the stairs below crashed open and Stheno raged onto the roof followed by weeping Euryale.

Stheno
looked at the jars sitting in front of Isis, who now sat on a small
broken jar that Serqa had found behind a building one day. She saw the
pile of spices and sacred implements. She saw the velum books on the
bricks and she screamed, "How dare you! You insolent worthless girls."
She threw the spices and the objects off the roof and they flew far into
the garden. She smashed Isis against the low wall. Isis broke into
three pieces.

Serqa cried out, "No!"

Stheno struck her across her cheek in a blinding crack. Serqa fell to the ground. Stheno yelled, "You. This was all your idea."

Euryale picked up the jars. Tears trickled down her cheeks.

Serqa said, "Please, we're trying to help you." Euryale shook her head and went down the stairs.

Stheno
snarled. "Ermentherna pick up your books and go downstairs." She
gripped Betet by the arm and dragged Betet down the stairs. The trap
door closed with a loud click and Serqa could hear the sound of a cross
bar going across the door from below.

She pounded on it and she
called out, "Please, we're trying to help you." But the trap door didn't
open. Not that night and not the next day as Ra sailed across the hot
sky. There was no shelter on the roof from Ra's jealous hot rays. There
was no water either. Serqa had known hunger, but now she knew a thirst
that dried her tongue so she couldn't speak the magic. She could only
mumble it through crackled lips as she clutched the three pieces of Isis
to her chest and sip at her own tears until she had no more to weep.

Finally,
the sun set and she panted at the cool on her blistered skin. She
thought she felt something soft and wet on her skin. She thought she
heard a low rumble voice whisper, "Shh, shh, it will be wonderful."

When
she woke in the morning, she lay on a rope strung bed that swayed as
she moved. She blinked up at a woven reed shelter that blocked the sun.
Swaths of brilliant red cloth were draped on the reeds and swayed gently
in the breeze. An urn of water that dripped with moisture sat on a
painted plaster chest next to the bed. She poured herself a cup of water
and drank every drop of it. There was a basket of dates and figs. She
ate them until juice ran down her cheeks. She stood up on the rug that
stretched over the roof and said, "Thank you magic. You've saved my
life." This was when she saw Isis, thick stripes of resin wet along the
breaks, but in one piece. She knelt in front of her and whispered,
"Thank you. Thank you. Thank you."

Cackling Geb laughed. He
scampered across the roof and grabbed Isis. He ran across the low wall.
Serqa chased after him. "Hey, come back." She chased him across one
roof, two roofs, three roofs. He jumped the narrow distance to another
set of row houses. She jumped after him. He ran across the city and she
followed him as Cairo's shadow soul grew small in the rising sun. They
came to a cemetery, where the living lived with the dead. She ran after
Cackling Geb through the sandstone structures and into one of them.
Inside a set of stairs went up. She following Cackling Geb as he laughed
and scampered up past the cemetery and up past the circling birds.
Finally, they reached the single cloud that sat in the sky. On the
cloud, a silver horse with golden wings ripped up long blades of white
cloud grass from the cloud. A gold boar with bronze wings snuffled in
the cloud dirt for cloud mushrooms. Cackling Geb raced across the cloud
and jumped into the blue sky.

Serqa heard a woman's laughter, but she couldn’t see Geb.

Serqa
was very tired. She sat down on the cloud, which was quite soft and
springy. The horse whickered at her and lipped at her cheek. She said,
"Hello." The boar snorted at her. She was thirsty, so she scooped up a
bit of cloud, which tasted slightly sweet and very refreshing. The horse
lipped at her cheek and nibbled at her hair. Serqa laughed because it
tickled. At her laughter, the clouds waved as if in a wind and she saw
the white wrapped figure of one of the dead. The boar snorted and glared
at her with large red eyes as she got up. His wings moved restlessly.
She knew in that moment that the boar and the horse were Medusa's sons
and they guarded her body as best they could on this cloud.

Cackling
Geb poked his head through the cloud. He held a roughly woven sack. It
hissed as he carried it. "Oh," said Serqa, "But I don't have any of the
things that were in the Book of Thoth.

Cackling Geb tilted his
head as if to say that he couldn't do everything. Serqa nodded, because
that was true. She knew the words and Euryale had the jars and the
spices were spread out in the gymnasium's garden as an offering.

Suddenly,
thinking of the statues in the garden, she wondered if this was a good
idea, but then she thought of Isis, who had pitied her brother Set in
the final battle and spared his life. "Which was why her son, Horus, cut
her head off, but her father, Thoth, grew her a cow's head," she
explained to the horse and the boar. The boar glared when she mentioned
heads being cut off, so she supposed he was touchy about that sort of
thing. She took the hissing bag, and with her eyes closed, pulled out
the head, which she put next to the white wrapped body. She took the
horse's mane and braided it into a silver mirror. She asked very nicely
for a bronze feather from the boar. She twisted it into an ankh.

She whispered the name of Ra as it was written in the Book of Thoth and she asked the magic, very nicely, for help.

Medusa
screamed, not like Stheno screamed in rage, but like the little ones at
the gymnasium sometimes did in terror. Serqa didn't think. She gathered
Medusa in her arms, and rocked the much larger woman back and forth.
"Shhh. Shhh. It's okay. I have you."

After what seemed like hours,
Medusa pulled away from her. She stretched and the white wrappings
pulled away. She said, in a voice that sounded like a snake and an eagle
and the wind from a far off sea, "Thank you."

Serqa didn't look
up. She didn't want to be turned to stone. She felt strong arms wrap
around her and Medusa leapt off the edge of the cloud. Serqa could see
great wings move around them and they flew. The boar and the horse flew
around them. The horse galloped and played, while the boar flew in a
straight line. Medusa touched down on the roof of the row house. Serqa
said, "Oh, but you've put me down on the wrong roof." But Medusa had
already flown away.

Serqa smiled at Se-Osiris, who was looking at
Isis in his hands and therefore had neither turned to stone or even
noticed Serqa and the flying snake woman, flying horse, and flying boar.
She cleared her throat, because she didn't want to startle him. She
said, "Hello, that's my Isis. May I have it back? The magic saved me,
but I need to help my friends."

Se-Osiris looked up at her. He was
very old and frail, and he was crying. He said, "This was my
daughter’s." He wiped away at a tear on his cheek. "I gave it to her. It
was all she took when she turned from me to marry a Hellene." He drew
his finger along the cartouche written on the bottom of Isis’ foot.
"When I turned my heart away from her." He laughed and he cried. "I have
sent messengers looking everywhere for her child since I learned that
she went into the deep earth." He held his hand to his face over his
eyes. "I sent Aions over the wall because I took pity on you and hoped
someone would take pity on her child." He took his hand away again.
Great tears trembled on the edges of his red rimmed eyes. "You were here
all along."

"Oh," said Serqa, who for once wasn't sure what to
say. She hugged him instead, but carefully, because he was old.
Although, it turned out, not really as old as she'd thought, just
unwell, and little old. She'd thought he'd been thousands of years old,
and he wasn't that old at all. His tall servant, Aions, turned out to be
his son and therefore Serqa's uncle. Aions came up soon and hugged them
both. He said, "When I fixed Isis, I should have looked at her foot. Or
when I left bread or the lamp or," He picked Serqa up and swung her
around so that her feet flew through the air. He laughed and hugged her
and said, "You sound just like Asnofre. She’d say, ‘You have the soul of
the earth little one,’ and she’d tickle me. What a wonderful day." He
tickled Serqa. "Isn't it a wonderful day? Say it."

She laughed and said, "It’s a wonderful day,” and “Oh, stop, I’m laughing too hard," and "I need to help my friends."

But
the magic wasn't done yet. Betet looked over the low wall at Serqa. She
said, "You did it. The gymnasium is in chaos. Medusa flew through the
door and, and Euryale laughed and Stheno laughed and they all flew into
the garden. Look."

Serqa looked and the three women were perched
on the wall together and were making some sort of garment that dangled
between the three of them down the wall. Medusa was veiled, but she was
easy to recognize. Serqa helped Betet over the wall. She said to her new
grandfather and uncle, "This is my sister, Betet. We were goddesses
together in the womb of the night."

Se-Osiris cried a little again
and Aions said, "Asnofre spoke in exactly the same way." He clapped his
hands together. "And now I have two nieces, where once I had none.
Fabulous day." He hugged them both.

Later they had Ermentherna
over for lemon water and honey cakes, because there were certainly no
lessons that day. The teachers were all sitting on the garden wall,
while the students were taking rides on the flying horse and boar.

It
was later, when Medusa, her eyes wrapped in funeral bindings, held her
class on love, compassion, justice and forgiveness that Serqa had the
idea. She passed a note to Ermentherna and Betet that read, “The magic
wants us to turn back the statues next.”